The present invention relates to a dishwashing machine, particularly, although not solely for home use.
The great majority of home-use dishwashing machines currently sold on the market have all of the following three construction features:
a) the open front face of the washing vessel is adapted to be closed by a loading door hinged according to a horizontal axis close to the floor, and therefore with a rotation of such a door by an angle of approx. ninety degrees directed from bottom to top, ie. upwards;
b) the washing and rinsing aid dispensers, which are accommodated within the thickness of the loading door, are accessible by the user, for filling them up, through proper apertures with respective lids provided on the inner door;
c) the water softer device is arranged behind the socle or plinth of the machine, so that the aperture for filling in the salt in the appropriate reservoir, which is part of the water softener device, is located in the lower face (bottom) of the washing vessel.
Notwithstanding the very large diffusion enjoyed on the marketplace, this kind of construction of a dishwashing machine is rather unsatisfactory from the point of view of overall convenience of use, since the operations that the user is required to perform in order to fill the above mentioned substances in the machine are at least awkward, if not wearisome to be carried out by elderly or, anyway, scarcely dexterous people.
Dishwashing machines intended to reduce the extent of these drawbacks have been proposed, which however still feature the peculiarity indicated under a) above, ie. the loading door hinged on to the bottom portion of the machine. In particular:
in the European patent EP-A-0 545 127 a part of the water-carrying circuit is housed within the thickness of the loading door and comprises a ion-exchange water softener, a salt reservoir and a water metering device for the regeneration of the ion-exchanging resins. In correspondence of the hinging axis of the door use is then made of quick-fitting means for connection with the remaining part of the same water-carrying circuit, which is conventionally housed in the outer casing of the machine, under the washing vessel thereof. Such connection means are clearly subject to wear-down, with a resulting risk of flooding, owing to the door being repeatedly opened and closed. Since the aperture of the salt reservoir is located on the inner door of the machine, the filling in of salt by the user must be carried out using due care and attention, which are not always ensured to the desired extent considering that the door must be at the same time kept in a partially opened position in the absence of any checking or retaining means;
in the invention described in US-A-5 755 244 and the number of patents correlated therewith, a dishwashing machine is constituted by two modular units arranged upon each other and complete of all pertaining functional component parts, except for those concerning the water softener. The greater complexity of the construction of a machine of this kind is fully apparent here, along with the related higher manufacturing and servicing costs, owing to said component parts being practically multiplied by two;
in the European patent application EP-A-0 858 768, the dishwashing machine has a loading door that is provided on top with a control panel having an increased thickness, which houses both the control devices and the washing product and rinsing aid dispenser, whereas all component parts pertaining to the water softening function are quite conventionally arranged behind the socle of the machine, under the washing vessel. As a result, such a machine does not actually introduce any improvement in terms of convenience of use as far as the filling in of salt is concerned, while even the filling in of detergent and rinsing aid must in any way be made with the loading door kept in a partially opened position.
It is therefore a main purpose of the present invention to provide a dishwashing machine in which the operations that must be performed by the user in view of filling in salt, washing and rinsing aids, as well as maintenance, servicing and/or repair are particularly facilitated thanks to a more rational construction of the loading door.
A further purpose of the present invention is to make the construction of a dishwashing machine more rational so as to make it more easily and economically manufacturable on a mass production scale.